A treatise on etherization in childbirth : Illustrated by five hundred and eighty one cases / By Walter Channing.

  • Channing, Walter, 1786-1876.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on etherization in childbirth : Illustrated by five hundred and eighty one cases / By Walter Channing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    4/424 (page 2)
    safety of etherization in childbirth are to be fully established, they are neverthe- less all-important, and deserving of the most serious and candid consideration. The volume closes with the correspondence elicited by Dr. C.'s circular; and, in an Appendix, are given the details of several cases in which puerperal fever occurred after the use of chloroform; of a case of etherization in nausea of early pregnancy, threatening life ; of a case r>f etherization in vomiting, spasms, &c. in the sixth month of pregnancy, threatening life; of a case of cholera treated by etherization; of a case of typhoid fever, accompanied by spasms, in which etherization was employed; of a ease of puerperal convulsions, in which chloro- form was beneficially employed ; and a number of extracts from medical journals bearing on the general subject of the treatise. In the foregoing analysis of the work of Dr. Channing, we have endeavored to lay before our readers a clear, full, and candid view of the character of the evidence adduced by the author in favor of the employment of etherization in childbirth, and the leading deductions drawn by him from his own experience on this subject, and the facts he has collected from other sources. The subject is a highly important one. The certain means for the relief of the pangs of parturition is unquestionably to be hailed as a blessing that should not be re- jected for any trivial cause or mere hypothesis. But, however desirable may be means for rendering childbirth painless, the simple fact that such means has been discovered cannot be received as any valid argument for its employment. The important point to be settled, as Dr. Channing very properly remarks, re- lates to its safety — can it be employed without injury to the mother and child ? The question as to its safety is not alone, however, whether, under its use, labor, in the great majority of cases, will go on, and terminate favorably in respect to both parent and offspring; but whether, under its use, risk of injury will be in- curred by the one or the other, in any case. For, inasmuch as a remedy whose only object is to quell pain is not absolutely necessary in natural labor at least, — shall it appear that in any given number of eases, lie the number great or small, risk of injury will be incurred from the employment of etherization,— unless such cases can be determined beforehand, we are not warranted in its employment in any. Dr. Channing. by the facts he has collected, has certainly offered a very respectable amount of evidence in favor of the general safety and absence of risk in the employment of the anaesthetic agents to quell the pains of labor. . . . His views are stated fully and freely, and from a sincere belief that they have a legitimate basis in numerous and well-established facts. We return our thanks to Dr. Channing for having collected much of this evidence; for, adopting in part his own language, although the question How generally should etherization be employed in midwifery, and what are the safe and proper limits of its use ? is still an open one ; nevertheless the time which has been occupied in the observation of the facts has not certainly been lost time. FROM THE NEW YORK JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, March, 1849. The means, then, of appreciating the safety of etherization are multiplying every day; and to them Dr. Channing has made a most important and accepta- ble addition in his treatise. . . . We now come to the true pith and mar- row of the treatise, — the cases : eighty-seven are given in more or less detail, and with remarks. Next we have three tables, No. 1, of 516 cases of natural labor — in 358 ether, and in 158 chloroform was given. No. 2, of 28 cases of non-natural labor seen by Dr. Channing. No. 3, 24 cases non-natural, for which Dr. Channing is indebted to friends who communicated them. Of these cases, all those in the first table terminated favorably for the mother; in none were any unfavorable effects of ether noted ; and of the forty-six physicians in whose practice they occurred, thirty-six gave an opinion decidedly and unequi- vocally favorable to etherization ; and of the remainder almost every one speaks favorably with restriction as to purity of the article, selection of case, &c. &c. Here, then, is an array of facts, and opinions founded on facts, which the profes- sion will know how to value